


Revisions/Additions

by ChloShow



Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Drugs, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-08 09:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5491937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloShow/pseuds/ChloShow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of scenes that would've helped add to the narrative cohesion of Fargo season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Aliens

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place at the beginning of 2x01 in lieu of the faux-Reagan movie, "The Massacre at Sioux Falls."

The apartment hadn’t been cleaned probably since he’d started renting it. No, wait…his memory was fuzzy. Simone had pressured him to clean up after their pile of empty beer bottles and cans started to draw the attention of even the least sober of their guests.

Today, the shower hissed white noise over the sound of some melodramatic orchestral track introducing "The Massacre at Sioux Falls;" a quick channel flip landed in the middle of a Jetsons’ episode.

“I hate this family,” Rye groaned, pouting in his armchair, not fully committed to getting drunk or stoned yet seeing as it was barely noon.

Simone, however, had aimed to lose herself before giving in and driving back home, “Amen to _that_.”

“Like who the fuck cares about robot maids or-or-or song writing contests!” He preached to his semi-conscious congregation of one, “None of these are real problems!”

“I thought you were talking about our family,” Simone turned from her back to her side on the couch, one arm dangling to the floor.

Rye plowed on in his tirade against television programming, “Let me tell you a real problem: pulling your fucking weight in a family of giants. Now I’m no lightweight, but compare me to Dodd, Bear—heck—Hanzee even, and I’m a $5 lottery scratch off you picked up off the ground after robbing a bank.”

When Rye ranted like this, Simone let him go; there was no point in stopping him while his thoughts seemed to connect straight to his mouth. He’d wear himself out soon like a toddler throwing blocks after downing a vat of Kool-Aid. Her focus wandered from the futuristic cars zooming about on the TV set to the clock right above. A soft, swift _click_ flipped the clock panel to read 12:02PM.

“Hey, is there something happening at 12:30 ‘cause it feels like an important time for some reason, I just can’t rememb—“

“Shit! What time is it?” Rye froze, cutting Simone off after she’d cut off his own rambling train of thought.

“12 o’clock.”

“I’m late. I gotta—shit…” He catapulted himself out of his chair, snorted the remnants of a line of coke on the countertop, grabbed his keys, and left in one great, confused whirlwind.

In all the excitement, no one had noticed the shower had stopped running. An attractive man entered the living room wearing patterned briefs and a towel around his bare torso, “Where’d Rye go?”

“He’s late. For…something.”


	2. Deer in the Works

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in "The Gift of the Magi" 2x05.

Two suitcases.

All she owned on God’s green Earth could fit into two suitcases.

Bear helped her pack that night like he’d promised, but he didn’t keep his word on the “no arguing” part, which was to be expected.

“You don’t have to leave.” They’d reached the foyer when Bear decided to have one last go at convincing Cassie to stay.

“You know as well as anybody that I have to leave,” Cassie’s hand lingered on the door handle before dropping to her side, waiting for the rebuttal.

“It’s not right for a son to grow up without a mother.”

“I can’t support him on my own. We’ve discussed this. And I’m not taking your money. That would only make matters worse. Besides, they'd never let me keep him,” she set her suitcase down, keeping her voice low but forceful.

“Is it pride?” he set her other case down, gritting his teeth and ready to get at the heart of the problem they’d been discussing for a week.

Cassie collected herself, aware she couldn’t let their relationship end on such a bitter note, “If I were to support myself on your money, your _family’s_ money, they would never let it go, and I would still be—trapped! Under their control! You see that, right?”

“I would be helping you. They’d never find out.”

“I couldn’t live with myself,” she bit her tongue, “This family is poison whether you want to hear it or not.”

Bear winced, “I know Dodd’s not the easiest guy to live with—“

“Dodd? I’m talking about your mother! She’s the one who turns a blind eye to your brother hitting his _children_ for Christ’s sake…”

“Simone talked back to him. She was being disrespectful.”

At this, Cassie recoiled as if she’d been slapped, “I can’t believe it. You sound just like them…I have to get out of here before I start making excuses for them. I’ve tried to defend Donna, but if she’s too scared to protect her own fucking child…” Beds creaked; blankets rustled.  Someone was awake.

She grabbed her suitcase once more, waiting for Bear to do the same, but he stood there with shoulders slumped, torn between his family and his wife. “At least, say goodbye to Charlie.”

“If I have to tell him goodbye, I don’t think I could ever leave,” She reached into her pocked, revealing an envelope, “Give this to him, will you?” Bear took the sealed letter, running his fingers along the words TO: CHARLIE.   Cassie opened the door, picked up her second suitcase, and left without another word.


	3. All My Sons

“That’s not our style.”

Bear marched his niece deep into the woods, far from any place someone could possibly stumble across the body.

The crisp air pierced Simone's throat with each heaving breath. Every plea she’d used in her defense withered under her uncle’s stoic expression.

“ _This_ isn’t our style!” She gestured wildly to her surroundings. With Death at her heels, she could make out each branch on every limb of the trees lining the path to her impending execution.

“This _is_ our style.”

“Yeah, maybe grandpa’s style, but you think _grandma_ would ever sign off on this? Family killing family?”

They’d stopped moving. Simone waited for a reaction, any reaction from her uncle, but once Bear had made up his mind after careful deliberation, he rarely strayed from his decision.

“That’s why she doesn’t know I’m doin’ this. Kneel down now.”

It took every ounce of strength left in her to not succumb to his command. If she had to die today, she’d go out fighting.

What upset her the most was not that she was moments away from death but instead that her worst fears had been confirmed. She’d assumed the other Gerhardts disapproved of her choices, but she never once considered they cared so little for her that they'd be capable of this.

Mike Milligan or his silent partner or some stranger could’ve marched her out there, and sure, she would’ve begged for her life, but that would’ve been business; cold, impersonal business. After years of selectively cutting herself off from the Gerhardt world so that she could emotionally survive, she must’ve missed the memo that her relatives were merely coworkers in a blood-run company.

None of the beatings her dad had given her could compare to the betrayal she felt in that moment. The abuse made sense; Dodd hated her. But did everyone else hate her, too?

No. There was one person who’d escaped the moral deadening of life with the Gerhardts.

“Charlie!” She gasped, grasping at her last shot at survival. “You say it’s my fault Charlie’s locked up. Well, if he were here, what would _he_ do, huh?”

“Leave Charlie out of this,” Bear grunted, keeping his pistol trained on Simone’s chest.

“If he knew you were doing this,“ she treaded without caution, “that you were going to shoot me dead on some deserted road _for his sake_ , would he still be proud to call you his dad?”

While Simone braced herself for the sound of a gunshot, fury raged behind her uncle’s eyes, but before Bear could pull the trigger and send Simone to her final Judgment before God and all his angels, a faint voice in a buried memory stayed his hand.

_‘I can’t believe it. You sound just like them…’_

A fierce wind picked up. Leaves flew down the dirt path where two figures stood locked in a battle of wills against the fading winter sun. Cassie Gerhardt would never know this, but her heated words spoken nearly a decade ago had sealed Simone's fate.


	4. The Use of Force

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at the beginning of 2x09 instead of that storybook narration.

Rain from the storm earlier that morning dripped from the gutters. Slush squished under Dodd’s galoshes as he stole a smoke from behind the house. Ma didn’t know he smoked [or he thought she didn’t]. Wet footsteps approached from around the corner, and Dodd hid his cigarette behind his back with the face of someone clearly Up to Something.

The footsteps belonged to Hanzee, which was alright because he was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a rat.

“What’re ya doin’ back here, huh?”

“This is where I live,” Hanzee walked past Dodd toward a small maid’s quarters adjacent to the house.

Before Hanzee could reach the door to the one-room shack, Dodd reached out, tugging at the other teen’s sleeve to stop him. “Jeezus, look at the shiner on you.” He brought the cigarette back to his lips, laughing at Hanzee’s misfortune only to find the tobacco was no longer lit.

Indeed, a purplish red welt outlined the smaller boy's left eye.

“Ya know,” Dodd broke off a match from a pack in his pocket, striking the phosphorus and lighting his cigarette once more, “If ya just did as you’re told, you wouldn’t get hit so much. Or even better, you could just _leave_.”

As Hanzee turned away, Dodd snickered, “Ma noticed the missing silver, didn’t she?” This caught Hanzee’s attention; Dodd continued to bait the hook, “Keep walkin’ and you’ll never know where I stashed it.”

This revelation stung more than the back of Mrs. Gerhardt’s hand, rings and all. Although he couldn’t physically assault Dodd, he could shoot him a death glare laced with a threat, “You tell me where the silver is, and I don’t tell her about _that_ ,” he motioned with his chin to the cigarette in the 14-year-old’s hand.  

Nonplussed, Dodd shrugged, “Eh, she’ll tan my hide, but I won’t get kicked out of the house like you will once more things start to disappear.”

“What do you want?”

Dodd took a long, grown-up drag on his cigarette for dramatic effect and burst into a coughing fit. After collecting himself, he threw the cigarette on the ground, crushing it underneath his heel in a shallow mud puddle as he approached Hanzee, “I want _you_ to do anything I say.”

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

“Bullshit.” Standing toe to toe with the oldest Gerhardt, Hanzee found plenty indication of _shadenfreude_ on Dodd’s face but unfortunately no bullshit.

“Okay, then.” Dodd broke the staring contest, walking back toward the front of the house in a note of finality before Hanzee painfully relinquished his pride.

“Fine. But you tell her I never stole anything.”

If he had to remove his own eyes so that he never had to see Dodd smile like that again, he would.


	5. The Story of an Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are the last two scenes of 2x10, "Palindrome."

The Fargo Police Department remained short-staffed for the first couple days after the events at the Motor Motel. Drowning under a flood of paperwork, Lt. Ben Schmidt had no time to think of the commitments he’d made to the now almost entirely deceased Gerhardt family. On the third day after the events the media was now calling the Massacre at Sioux Falls, Schmidt received a call from the Minnesota State Patrol, asking about the status of one ‘Charlie Gerhardt.’

“We’re just not sure what to do with him, ya know. He’s been locked up in this cell, gee, for ‘bout a week now,” Denise twiddled her Princess Leia-inspired hair, “Heard tell from Sheriff Larsson here of some sort of deal? Just waitin’ for it in writing.”

Schmidt pinched the bridge of his nose, “Let the kid go, okay? I’ll get you the _damn_ paperwork—sorry—sorry. Just really busy right now. I’ll get the paperwork mailed by this time tomorrow. In the meantime, send a patrol car over, and we’ll get him home.”

***

There wasn’t much home left by the looks of it. Charlie had only been gone a week, but there wasn’t a sign of life on the Gerhardt compound. No cars stood parked on the lawn. Men no longer stood guard at the gates or in front of the house. Several windows were boarded over, and two fresh headstones gleamed in the noonday sun. The Fargo PD patrol car dropped him off and left without a word of explanation, and by some bureaucratic misstep, no one had informed the boy of his family’s fate.

“Dad?” Charlie called into the foyer down the hall, “Granma? Simone?” All he wanted was a familiar face, a warm hug, hearty congratulations of surviving his first stint in prison.

Floorboards groaned under his feet as he wandered into the kitchen as if the house physically ached at the loss of its owners. Puzzled at the moldy, half-cooked spaetzle on the stove and the terrible stench wafting in from the living room, Charlie decided to head upstairs, less and less comfortable with what his surroundings were telling him.

Not much had changed in his room, which was mostly bare anyway, but half the other upstairs rooms appeared to have been ransacked. He opened his father’s door last. The apprehension nearly gave him a panic attack, but according to his memory, nothing seemed to be out of place or especially messy.

At a loss for what to do, Charlie lowered himself onto his father’s bed, resting his head on the cool threadbare cotton of the quilted pillowcase. In his emotionally and physically exhausted state, he convinced himself that at any moment he would hear his dad’s heavy footsteps and feel some sort of relief.

A few moments passed, and Charlie finally registered that a letter addressed to him lay open on the bedside table a few inches from his face. Although the envelope read TO: CHARLIE, and the paper felt soft and old, he’d never seen the document before in his life. One line into the letter and a 10-year-old wound, stitched and healed long ago, tore open once more.

_Dear Charlie,_

_I know this is confusing, but you’ll understand everything when you’re old enough. I have to leave. That means I won’t be able to see you or your father until you’re a grown boy, which is both too close and much too far away._

_You might blame yourself for this, but please know that this was nobody’s fault. Not yours and not your father’s. I still love you both dearly. If you’re angry, and I understand if you are, be angry with me. Your father might blame himself, but he’s always been hard on himself for things beyond his control.   Remind your father he’s a good man. I think he forgets sometimes._

_I will love you always, and I wish with all my heart that I could stay to see you grow into the handsome, smart young man I know you will become._

_With love,_

_Mom_

The sound of cars approaching pulled Charlie out of the past and to the bedroom window. Several unfamiliar cars and a news van crowded the property in front of the house, battling for an interview with the recently released Gerhardt.

***

Two Years Later

The small house looked nearly the same as it had before the trial except for the signs that read “For Sale” and “Open House Today!” Cars lined the whole block just to get a peek at the infamous Murder House of Minnesota. Peggy’s realtor said they’d play that up as a selling point.

Everyone wanted to know the story and interrogated her with the same round of questions. “How’d ya get out of prison?” “Is this where you killed the guy?” “Why didn’t they find ya guilty?”

“’Prosecutorial misconduct’ they called it, I think,” Peggy made the mistake of trying to give out earnest answers, so when one couple spent a few too many tense minutes with her, trying to relive the scene of the crime, her realtor, Barbara, swooped in and escorted Peggy to an unoccupied room to rest.

After a 4-hour period of mingling with the potential buyers and tourists, Peggy waved Barbara and the last guests out the door with a perfunctory smile, locking the deadbolt and busying herself starting a fresh pot of tea to fill the crushing, lonely silence.

Resting her palms on the countertop and collecting her thoughts, she took a couple deep breaths before noticing a flicker of movement in her peripheral. A plain man dressed in a navy blue peacoat sat in her armchair on the far side of the living room.

“Excuse me, sir. The open house is over. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

The man said nothing. She could barely read his expression either as he wore a tuque, aviator-style wire eyeglasses, and a thick, black mustache.

“Sir, if you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the cops—“

With that, the man pulled a gun out of his coat pocket and a silencer out of the other. He took his time, screwing the long piece of metal onto the pistol. Peggy’s hand reached out behind her, feeling along the tile counter for a weapon of some sort until the man spoke.

“Sit.”

She froze. This man was no stranger.

“On the sofa. Sit,” the Gerhardt’s former enforcer kept a sure grip on the pistol, removing his beanie to reveal a short crop of hair, shaved up the sides in the manner of respectable, conservative men.

Peggy took the farthest spot on the couch she could from Hanzee, waiting for him to fill the dead air.

“Why did you stab me?” Hanzee had waited for years to finish this job, but he wanted answers. When he saw Peggy struggling to recall the incident, he explained, “At the cabin. When I asked you to cut my hair. Why did you stab me?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

She’d all but completely repressed the hours leading up to Ed’s death; prison had been less about self-reflection and more about surviving to see the next day. Now that her life depended on sharing her side of the story, she pried open those memories, emotion flooding back into her mind like blood back into a limb that had lost circulation.

“I was scared, okay? I was scared. You walk in all stony faced, shoot your partner, and ask me for a haircut. Believe it or not, that did not seem to me like a logical turn of events.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“How was I supposed to know that!” She lowered her voice after nearly screaming her answer. A tear leaked down her face, but she didn’t stop to dry her eyes, “My life was in danger. I was defending my family. Tell me you wouldn’t preemptively defend someone you love.“

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never loved anyone.” This threw Hanzee off balance. He never took the time to chat with his hits unless that meant interrogating, and he _never_ divulged information like this. But this wasn’t a normal hit, was it?

“I’m sorry.” What surprised her was that she wasn’t just telling him what he wanted to hear; she meant it. “You’ve never had anyone, so I don’t know if you can imagine, but you took Ed away from me. And isn’t that enough? Haven’t I suffered enough?”

“Stop.” He separated the silencer from the pistol and tucked the two away back inside his coat. “As long as you don’t call the cops, I won’t kill you.”

Peggy could barely breathe with nervous excitement, but Hanzee strangled this joy as he continued, situating his disguise and his winter weather gear, “You’re scared to be alone. And if you’re not used to it, that’s a fate worse than death. No, I won’t reunite you with your husband in some…afterlife.”

Hanzee took the back way out of the house, taking care to step in the heavily trafficked patches of snow while the reality of the situation gradually sunk into the vulnerable consciousness of his last victim.


End file.
